The silence of the usually outspoken Governor H.R. Bhardwaj, on his future course of action on the verdict of the Karnataka High Court's Division Bench that quashed the cases of illegal mining against the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, is a cause of concern to the Bharatiya Janata Party central leadership.
They are waiting for his move before taking a call on whether to reappoint Mr. Yeddyurappa as Chief Minister.
At first, the party thought that the court verdict was an outright victory for Mr. Yeddyurappa.
On watch
But after analysing the legal implications of the verdict as well as the comments made by legal experts, the party leadership is said to have decided to wait to see if the Governor will challenge this order before the Supreme Court.
But the Governor has chosen to maintain silence and this has perplexed the BJP central leaders.
According to sources, the BJP central leaders are also analysing the legal impact of the observation in the High Court's order that the “State government had neither filed its views nor its advocate had submitted any arguments” regarding Mr. Yeddyurappa's writ petition. The BJP is also worried about the political impact if the Central Empowered Committee recommends a CBI probe against Mr. Yeddyurappa, with respect to illegal mining.
The fact that the CEC is yet to submit its views to the Supreme Court has only increased their anxiety.
“There is no doubt that the High Court's verdict has tilted the balance in favour of Mr. Yeddyurappa now. But, we do not want to face an embarrassing situation wherein we reappoint him as Chief Minister and then he finds himself in a legally problematic situation which requires him to step down again. That is bound to affect our anti-corruption campaign against the UPA. Hence, we do not want to make a decision in haste. We want to wait for clarity to emerge, including the Governor's move and the CEC's views. We are unlikely to make a decision this month,” highly placed sources in the BJP said.
